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Cartagena, Caribbean Jewel

By JAMES BROOKE

Published: October 8, 1995

AFTER dining in the courtyard of a colonial mansion, couples at Bodegon de La Candelaria climb narrow stairs for rum drinks in a rooftop cupola. An aging Spanish Republican plays an accordion and sings of the old country, and a Caribbean breeze softly wafts through open windows and over a pensive audience sprawled on worn sofas. Beyond the windows, the roofs of Cartagena are illuminated in a yellowish glow -- church towers pockmarked by cannon balls from pirate ships of long ago, sloping tile roofs of the 18th-century houses of colonial grandees and massive defending walls that once broke the spirit of Britain's Royal Navy.

After 20-odd years of rambling around South America, I easily nominate this ancient Colombian seaport as my favorite port of call on the continent. Many Americans would place a Colombian vacation on their list of holidays in hell. The State Department describes most of Colombia as "volatile and dangerous," recommending that visitors stay off back roads and limit their trips to Cartagena and a handful of other tourist enclaves. But few Americans know that tourism is Colombia's third largest foreign exchange earner, after coffee and oil. The key is Cartagena -- Colombia's most popular tourist destination, a tranquil jewel on the nation's 1,000-mile Caribbean coast.

With charter flights arriving here from Canada and Europe, foreigners now account for almost 40 percent of Cartagena's tourists. In a sign that Americans are waking up to this Caribbean secret, 132 cruise ships docked here last year -- nearly a fivefold increase over 1991. With the Cartagena Hilton doing a booming business, an Inter-Continental hotel is scheduled to open next year.

While many Cartagena promoters put "Colombia" in tiny print, the city's attractions lend themselves to bold face -- balmy weather, excellent seafood, 450 years of history, interesting excursions, high quality shopping and personal safety that is no worse than in, say, San Juan. In a continent of street crime and monumental traffic jams, Cartagena, a city made for strolling, is a rarity.

As Colombians and foreigners buy vacation homes here, gentrification and historic preservation are making Cartagena's historic center the most expensive real estate market in Colombia. When I first visited here, as a high school student in 1973, Cartagena was a sensuous, decaying city -- tropical poverty overlaid on a glorious past. On my most recent visit, last February, I was jolted to discover that two chic boutiques -- a jewelry store (Cano) and a leather store (Marroquinaria) -- have outlets in Manhattan's Trump Tower.

But in a city of 800,000 with 50 hotels and dozens of boarding houses, there is a Cartagena for every budget -- and the Colombian peso is kept at a level that makes the city one of South America's cheaper destinations. With planning, the biggest expense can be the $559 cost of a round-trip ticket on Avianca's daily, two-and-a-half-hour flight from Miami to Cartagena. The 50-minute air shuttle from Bogota costs as little as $150 round trip.

With high temperatures ranging from 86 to 93 degrees, Cartagena's weather is a little drier and marginally cooler during high season, from mid-December to mid-April. Water pollution limits activity on the urban beaches to sun-bathing. For swimming, most visitors take excursion boats to the crystalline waters of Baru Island. Although every former Colombian president now seems to own an oceanfront apartment here, informality prevails during all seasons, with shorts acceptable day and night.

As Colombia's international showcase city, Cartagena routinely sees international festivals and congresses swallowing up hotel rooms. Last year, all of Latin America's heads of state converged here for an Ibero-American summit meeting. Next week, dozens of world leaders are to converge here for a meeting of the Nonaligned Movement. Regularly scheduled festivals in the city include the International Film Festival in early March, the Festival of Caribbean Music in late March, the Miss Colombia beauty pageant in November and the Moonlit Jazz Festival in December.

For a first-time visitor, the best orientation is to take a late afternoon taxi ride up to La Popa, where a white-washed monastery stands atop the city's highest hill. Built in 1607, the monastery is worth a quick visit before the 5:30 P.M. closing time ($1.10 entrance). Sunsets from this summit are spectacular, and a visitor, with map in hand, can use this vantage point to sort out Cartagena's confusing puzzle of lagoons, walls, forts, peninsulas, shantytowns, marinas and canals.

A little history helps one to understand why Colombians often call Cartagena "Heroica." In 1533, almost a century before the English Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock, a Spaniard founded Cartagena of the Indies, so named to differentiate it from Spain's Mediterranean seaport. A decade later, a French pirate, Robert Baal, looted gold bullion from the city, setting off two centuries of attacks by French and English pirates.